


After Edom

by glitterybluemagic



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Other, Post 2x20, edom, honestly idk what to tag someone help me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 18:11:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13300431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterybluemagic/pseuds/glitterybluemagic
Summary: He could hear the demons getting nearer. The sounds of their cries and wings were deafening but it did nothing to slow him down. He was close. He was going home.





	After Edom

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my take on what happens after Magnus goes to Edom. It's been a while since i've written so im rusty but honestly im just proud of how long this is XD. I kinda wanna do a second part but idk i have a few ideas but again im not making any promises. Although i would probably take a break from all the angst first though hahahahahhaha

All he could hear was the thudding of his feet on the hard ground and his heartbeat racing in his ears. He could feel his whole body working; his leg muscles running warm, dry air entering his lungs and blood flowing into every limb. It was almost mechanical. Right. Left. Right. Left. Keep running. Don’t stop. Never stop.  
There was a portal at the end of the clear path in front of him. His the only obstacle was his own body. After weeks of being kept awake and refusing to eat, his body’s fatigue was betraying him. He was tripping over his own feet, stumbling down onto the ground, struggling to get back up with arms that were too weak to hold up his frail body. His lungs were screaming and his eyes burned from the dust in the air but there was only one thought in his mind, pushing him to keep throwing his body forward and to keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

Live.

 

Nothing was coming out of the rift in front of them. Other than the dust and dry air, not a single living creature crawled through.   
Catarina and Dot stood in the frontlines. Their magic flowing out and around them, Catarina’s signature deep emerald intertwining with Dot’s shimmering silver, before being thrusted into the other realm. Their focus steady and breaths deep as they concentrated on closing the rift before them. Alec and Izzy stood by them with their weapons drawn, Izzy’s shoulders tense but grip strong on her whip and Alec’s arrow nocked into position, aimed right at the center of rift.

It felt strange standing in the loft again. It’s been almost a month since anyone had set foot in it. The marble floor had cracks. The furniture no longer looked pristine and brand new but old and aged. The paint now seemed dull and peeled off the wall in large pieces. Their footsteps and voices echoed through the loft almost hauntingly.   
Guilt weighed heavy in their hearts as they stood guarding against whatever was trying to break into the loft yet they were determined to make sure nothing else of Magnus would be taken away from them. They will not fail him again.

 

He should’ve been safe. The Shadoworld was finally settling into some sort of peace with Valentine and Sebastian gone. Tensions between the Downworld and the Clave were being set aside for a while to celebrate their victories. He should’ve woken up that morning to the faraway sounds of cars driving up and down the street and soft kisses being laid across his back as he hummed and turned to wrap himself around his boyfriend. They should’ve spent that morning exchanging kisses, laughter and smiles, whispering sweet nothings to each other as their hands roamed over the other’s bodies with the silent promise of protecting the other against any harm. He should’ve been safe.

Instead he was jolted awake by the crashing of a vase. Turning around only to see his Alexander still in a deep sleep that he couldn’t bear to wake him up from. So with a kiss to his forehead, he walked out into the living room alone, unsuspecting of the hordes of demons waiting to attack on the other side. He didn’t stand a chance against them. They took him off guard. He didn’t have enough time to fight them off with his magic. All he managed to do was send a distress call to the nearest warlock and shout for his Shadowhunter as he struggled to pull himself away from them. Alec woke up immediately after hearing him but even then, they were outnumbered. He was fighting off a dozen demons at a time, swinging his seraph blade around and plunging it into them with brute force but with Magnus’s hands restrained, he was fighting them off alone. He barely heard Magnus calling out to him before being knocked out cold. As he fell to the ground, slipping into unconsciousness, he saw his lover trashing wildly as the demons pushed him through the other realm, screaming out his name.

 

Sweat was dripping down the back of his neck, calves heavy with every step forward while his skin turned red from the heat. His breaths and strides were getting shorter as the energy seeped away from his body. His magic strained trying to keep the portal open, fighting against whatever force was trying to keep him out. Magnus spent weeks waiting for a slip up in his routinely torture, building up his strength and magic for this exact moment. He wasn’t going to give up now. Picking up his pace, he kept his eyes locked onto his escape. He cast off the exhaustion and doubt clouding his mind and ran.

He was close. He could barely make out what safe haven stood on the other side of the portal but right now it didn’t matter. He just wanted to leave. The ground began to rumbling beneath him, wretched cries filling the air as the sky turned blood red. An impending sense of doom filled his gut as his steps begin to falter. They knew he was gone. They were coming for him now. Turning around he sees the Dragonidae demons, flying upwards, stretching their wings out. It would’ve been a magnificent view if not for the terror that seized him.

Run.

 

They’ve been standing on guard for almost 20 minutes now and the rift was still wide open. The two warlock’s breaths were getting shallower with each minute. Something wasn’t right. Demons should have been clamoring to enter or leave through the rift. Catarina and Dot are both more than strong enough to close the rift by now. Was this a distraction? Were demons running rampant in the streets of New York now? Glancing out the nearest window, nothing seemed to be amiss. Something wasn’t adding up.

A low rumble filled the loft, the vibrations causing everyone to lose their footing. Looking back up to the rift, they saw a dark figure running towards them with two Dragonidae demons on his tail. Panicking, Catarina began chanting a spell, willing the rift to close while Izzy offered her strength to Dot. 

Magnus. 

His heart whispered. It couldn’t be. They’ve been looking for him for weeks, tracking every clue and rumor they had. Magnus was in Edom. How could anyone possibly escape hell? Yet for some inexplicable reason, he recognized the figure running towards him. The way he ran, the way he turned back to look at the demons flying closer and the way his heart was reaching out to him. It was Magnus. 

“Stop! Keep the rift open! It’s Magnus!”

 

He could hear the demons getting nearer. The sounds of their cries and wings were deafening but it did nothing to slow him down. He was close. The portal was wide open now, with no resistance coming from the other side. He gathered his magic again, preparing to close the portal once he went through. His legs began to move further and quicker, taking wider strides. Arms swinging to provide momentum. With his head clear of any thought, he braced himself and jumped through the portal.

Everything happened quickly. As soon as Magnus fell through the portal, he turned to throw a ball of red flaming magic, closing the rift and causing a shockwave to ripple through the air, knocking them all off their feet and slamming into the nearest wall. Disoriented, all they could register was the ringing in their ears as they tried to get back on their feet. Alec’s eyes searched for Magnus who laid unmoving on the floor. His heart stuttered. No. No. Scrambling, Alec made his way over to his body, not noticing it tensing up.

Magnus sensed a presence approaching him and his instincts kicked in. His eyes shot open and his magic reacted, stilling everything around him. He took his time to assess his surroundings. He was back home again. In his loft. No chains and cold stone walls in sight. No table of torture devices glinting at him, waiting to be covered by his own blood. Just dirty floors and dull knives from the kitchen. The air was fresher here, refreshing even. He could take deep breaths without is lungs prickling in irritation. In front of him stood 4 familiar faces. It took him a minute to recognize them. Catarina. Dorothea. Isabelle. 

Alexander.

Realizing he was safe, he reeled in his magic slowly, watching everything gradually move at their original pace. Alec moved the fastest, almost crashing right into him. He flinched away, flashes of the times his father took on his beloved’s face, running though his mind. He could almost feel the punches thrown at him by the same hands that were reaching out for him now. He could see the pain and confusion in Alec’s eyes. Magnus yearns for the warmth and safety of his arms but instead he takes a step back.

 

Alec feels his heart break a little more with the distance Magnus puts between them. Steeling himself, he stood where he was. Magnus had spent months in Edom, who knows what kinds of sadistic torture he went through. His eyes roamed over his body. He was covered with scars, blood and bruises but there were no serious injuries. Good. But he looked smaller, more fragile. He could see ribs out from the holes in his shirt and noticed a grey pallor to his usually glowing skin. His cheeks were sunken and eyes bloodshot. It looked like it took him all the effort just to stand up right now. 

“Magnus, let me heal you please,” Catarina’s voice broke through the silence. 

“I won’t touch you, just don’t fight my magic please.”

 

There was a slight tremble to her voice. Catarina rarely pleads. It was odd. Noticing her distress, Magnus nods slightly, feeling her soothing magic course through him almost immediately. He feels the exhaustion settling in his bones, eyelids drooping as her magic enveloped him. After weeks of being on high alert, his senses could finally dull down, leaving him feeling numb. For once he wasn’t being beaten down to unconsciousness. Comforted by the familiar magic surrounding him, he drifted to sleep. 

 

“It was a portal, not a rift,” Dot said as she finished fixing up the loft.

“How he had the strength and magic to even create a portal in Edom and kept it open for so long is beyond me,” Catarina sighed.

Magnus was sleeping now, healing as they spoke. Or healing as much as he could physically. The mental and psychological trauma was a whole other thing. All Catarina could do was to put him in a dreamless sleep. Worries clouded their minds but the overwhelming sense of relief was enough to keep their heads up. They sat around the living room, processing everything that had happened. They debated informing the others before deciding it was best to leave it up to Magnus to decide when to announce his return. Besides if news reached the Clave, they’d have him interrogated immediately and from how he reacted before, they would only treat him as a hostile. 

Alec leaned by the doorway to Magnus’s room. Arms crossed and eyes set on the sleeping man. A part of him still can’t believe he’s here, breathing and safe. He took in the peaceful expression on his face, so unlike what was directed at him before. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He’d seen Magnus being guarded after he and Valentine switched bodies, he’d seen him closed off after feeling betrayed by Alec himself, but this was something else. Magnus looked scared, as if he actually believed that Alec would hurt him. Where in the previous situations he could find a solution to the problems at hand, in this one, he didn’t have a single answer. What if Magnus never looked at him the same way again? 

What if he could no longer love him?

“Give him time big brother,” Izzy’s voice snapping him out of his reverie.

“You two love each other too much to let the other go.”

She was right. Sometimes it hurt to think about how much he loved Magnus. It pained him to wake up to an empty bed everyday he was gone. Every dream was about his love and for weeks all he wanted to do was sleep so that he could be with him. During his waking moments, he had to continuously distract himself from thinking about him so that he could be the leader his soldiers needed him to be. Everything and anything reminded him of Magnus and sometimes it would be the only thing that kept him going but other times it was the very reason for when he’d spend hours training till his knuckles bled. There was no two ways about it, Alec loved him. He was in love him and with all that he was, good and bad, broken and whole, together and apart.

 

His eyes shot open, heart pounding and gasping for air. He couldn’t move. Back laying on the mattress with his arms by his sides, tense. His eyes were unable to make out anything in the dark and his thoughts began to spiral. He never left. It was all in his head or some twisted hallucination his father came up with. He was still trapped. 

“Magnus breathe, I need you to breathe with me.”

It took him a moment before his eyes adjusted and locked on to hazel ones staring back at him. The voice, it belonged to them. Dread filled his heart. Not this again. 

How many times were they going to use Alec against him? 

“Stop. Stop please. I know it’s not Alexander so just please, anything but him, please,” he whispered, keeping his eyes shut as tears streamed down his cheeks.

His father used a bunch of different faces against him before but nothing broke him the same as when he had his demons don Alec’s face. He believed him every single time, convinced his beloved came to rescue him. He was always wrong. Only realizing when the impersonator mockingly grinned at him. Pathetic he would say.

“Magnus, listen to me. I swear on Raziel, it’s really me. It’s Alec. Your Alexander. Please believe me, look at me please.”

They never begged. Then again it wouldn’t be the first time they tried something new. But there was something different this time. The voice was much softer, maybe even vulnerable. They sounded almost desperate. Everything inside him was screaming to keep his eyes closed, to not be lured into a false sense of safety. He opened his eyes slowly, braced for the voice to turn into snarls and eyes to turn pitch black but all he saw were hazel ones swimming in tears, filled with worry, despair and so much love. There was no way of faking that. It was pure, whole and true. 

Alexander.

His body acted before his brain could catch up. His arms wrapped around the Shadowhunter’s neck, pulling him close, breathing in his scent, filling all his senses with the man before him. He felt tentative touches on his back and responded burying his face in the other’s neck. When Alec finally held him, hands splayed, all he could do was sob. His mind was still shouting for him to pull away but he felt so safe and warm, he just wanted take what he can get. He’s been deprived for so long, caution was thrown out the window. He could feel Alec’s body racking with sobs too, trying to silence them by pushing his face into Magnus’s shoulder, somehow pulling them closer together in the process.

 

It could be minutes or hours before they could bare to pull away from each other. Even then, Magnus took one of Alec’s hands into one of his and held it to his cheek and his other hand reached up to wipe away the tears off Alec’s face. Alec used his free hand to hold on to Magnus’s arm, their foreheads leaning on each other. There was so much to talk about. Even more to work through. But in this moment, nothing else existed but them and each other. Tonight, they reveled in the warmth and safety of their embrace. With the silence only broken by the sound of their breaths, their hearts slowed down to beat as one.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @glitterybluemagic


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